Syria and Türkiye receive global aid after earthquakes | News

Members of the international community continue to send humanitarian aid, technical rescue personnel and other supplies after the devastating earthquakes last Monday that affected Türkiye and Syria, leaving more than 11,000 dead so far.

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China offered emergency humanitarian aid worth 30 million yuan (equivalent to 4.4 million U.S. dollars) to Syria, its Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said at a press conference on Wednesday.

Mao said $2 million of the emergency aid would be used to get urgently needed cash and relief supplies, adding that China would speed up existing food aid projects.

China had already pledged to give a first tranche of 40 million yuan ($5.9 million) in emergency aid to Türkiye.

An earthquake rescue team sent by China arrived at the Adana (Türkiye) airport early in the morning. It is an 82-person team, which brought 20 tons of medical and rescue supplies and equipment, as well as four search and rescue dogs, he added.

Meanwhile, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced that a second specialized rescue team will leave for Türkiye. The Special Malaysian Disaster Relief and Rescue Team (Smart) will join a team of 75 already on the ground and will be working in the city of Gaziantep. A team of experts from South Korea also arrived in this city on Wednesday, made up of 50 military personnel and 62 firefighters.

The Ministry of Defense will also send a team of doctors and paramedics to set up a field hospital. The government agreed to also send a million dollars to Türkiye and Syria, but gave no further details on how the funds would be divided.

For its part, the Syrian Red Crescent (the Arab world's equivalent of the Red Cross) called on Western countries to lift sanctions against the country to facilitate relief efforts.

“Lift the economic sanctions imposed on Syria and the Syrian people,” said Syrian Red Crescent President Khaled Hboubati.

“Open the way for us. We are ready to provide assistance. We are ready to provide aid across the cross line and send aid convoys to Idlib,” he told reporters. "I call on the United Nations, the countries of the European Union and the USAID Program (US Agency for Development) to support them," he added.

In turn, the first three planes of the Russian Emergencies Ministry arrived in Türkiye. They brought more than 100 rescuers and doctors, as well as the special equipment to assist in regions affected by the devastating earthquakes.

In addition, since Monday, aircraft with expert personnel and aid from Algeria, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Libya, Iraq, Iran and India, among other nations, arrived in Syria. Lebanon sent a contingent of military personnel to support the rescue.